


Fairground Funhouse (or The Time Hannibal Went to the Fair)

by cailures



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Gen, mentions of Will but he's not really in the fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-22
Updated: 2015-08-22
Packaged: 2018-04-16 16:46:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4632669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cailures/pseuds/cailures
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hannibal goes to the fair and does what he does best: murder someone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fairground Funhouse (or The Time Hannibal Went to the Fair)

**Author's Note:**

> For #19.
> 
> Rating is mostly for mostly for homophobic language and some violence

Hannibal Lector was having more difficulty than he let on maintaining a seemingly disinterested stare as he wandered around the fairgrounds. It was a macabre human zoo filled with screaming children, angry adults, nostalgic elderly couples and disinterested workers who knew that it didn’t matter how hard they worked because they’d be out of a job by the end of the month anyway. Carnival rides filled with people whose screams of terror and laughter rang out through the crowd, food stands had long lines of people wanting to eat fried butter and oreos, and the game stands were packed with people trying to beat the rigged set up to win cheap stuffed animals and inflatable objects. To Hannibal, this zoo of people was a place to observe and hunt. After all for all his sophistication and French airs, deep down inside he occasionally craved the base and vulgar in the world and that included, on occasion, his prey. Hannibal usually preferred the seedier side town for his soirees into cannibalistic slumming however the county fair provided new and rather more exotic opportunities to observe the human condition. 

He also secretly wanted to see what the fuss about deep fried butter was.

Standing in line behind a woman (not enough meat on her to make a decent meal, Hannibal decided) and what he could only assume to be her giant of a husband (he had potential but it would be far too risky and far too fatty for what he had in mind), Hannibal surveyed his surroundings again. He was a hunter, this was his savannah, and these people were his wildebeest but he was still discombobulated. If Will had been there with him, he could have navigated across sea of people and pulled Hannibal to the best rides, haunted houses, food stalls, games, and other sights to see. Will would have unwittingly lead him to the best prey and Hannibal would have had his footing but, unfortunately, Will had other plans that night. He had laughed until he was red in the face when Hannibal had asked him if he wanted to go to the fair with him. 

“Wait, you’re serious?” Will choked out after noticing Hannibal’s discomfort. “If you really want to go, then you’re better off going in the evening on a Thursday or Friday. It’s weirder then.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“You’re constantly analyzing people, you’d be bored if you went at noon on a Tuesday because there are too many families and it’s not as crowded. Go at night and eat some fair food, ride some rides, and enjoy the spectacle. Just be careful, I got some nasty food poisoning after I had a hot dog there once.” 

It was a good point and Hannibal had taken Will’s advice except for his bit about the hot dog – he may occasionally eat terrible things but that was a step too far for him. In the 15 minutes since he arrived he’d already seen a couple get into a fight about a highly flammable looking stuffed duck, three teenagers swipe some beer off of what Hannibal assumed to be a carnival worker, and a small child vomit profusely after getting off a tilt-a-whirl. Yet the people were still rather mundane overall, no one truly obese or frighteningly skinny amongst them and definitely no one strikingly beautiful or ugly. It was, he must admit to himself, slightly disappointing. What is a fair without a good freak show after all?

“Look Kevin, I don’t care what you think but I’m not interested in fucking Krystl!!” The woman in front him yelled suddenly, drawing attention from the people in lines growing up around them. An elderly woman and her husband glared at them while younger couple snickered but studiously tried to pretend that they weren’t eavesdropping on the conversation. 

“Keep your voice down, Faye-Anne. This isn’t the time or place to have this talk.”

“I don’t care! If you didn’t want to talk about this you wouldn’t have brought it up again and you wouldn’t keep going on about it here. You keep pushing for us to have this fucking threesome and I’m not going to. For god’s sake she’s your cousin!”

“She’s not my actual cousin, she’s just my uncle’s kid. You really can’t be that offended anyway! What about the time you blew your boss and his friend, Faye-Anne? If you’re willing to suck two cocks at the same time, I don’t know why you can’t go down on Krystle?”

Hannibal wasn’t entirely sure why it mattered that Faye-Anne had some kind of sexual relationship with her boss but clearly her husband believed that it excused his desire to sleep with his cousin in a ménage-a-trois that no one waiting in line with them to get an elephant ear wanted to picture. The teenage boys to his left stifled laughter and blanched a little, while the elderly couple’s decades of practice helped them maintain a stony silence. 

Faye-Anne on the other hand made a sound that was both the most pitiful and the most grating noise imaginable– a cross between the wail of a cat in heat and a dying calf – before bursting out into tears. Clearly her husband had hit some sore spot in her conscious and now Hannibal was curious about her extramarital proclivities. 

“YOU PROMISED TO NEVER BRING THAT UP! THAT WAS BEFORE WE EVEN GOT TOGETHER!” She shrieked, her hands covering what Hannibal assumed to be her eyes.

“Clearly you don’t have a problem fucking other people as long as there’s a dick attached!” Kevin replied his voice booming and thick with what Hannibal could only assume was a mix of anger and satisfaction. Unlike his wife, Kevin gave off the impression that he was enjoying airing all their dirty laundry while waiting in line for fried bread dough dipped in sugar and butter. This wasn’t exactly what Hannibal thought Will meant when we said all the weird people show up at night but it was entertaining enough for the time being. As the line inched forward the people who had missed all the arguing passed by, some slowing down to assess the scene while others were too deeply engrossed in their food to care about the crying woman. It wasn’t until they approached the ordering counter that Faye-Anne stifled her sobbing. 

“One large elephant ear with extra butter and powdered sugar” she managed to squeak out, wiping her face. Hannibal could see where her mascara had clearly run since the backs of her hands had black smudges of the smeared cosmetic. The look on the face of the person taking her order also told him that she apparently was a mess; the wide eyed look of concern from what had been the most bored and boring teenage girl he’d seen in a long time was enough to tell him most of what he needed to know. 

“You’ll get fat if you eat like that you know.” Her husband half whispered, half shouted at her. Considering his own size, Kevin had very little room to talk but it wasn’t until the couple turned around to move to the side to wait for their order that Hannibal really had a chance to size up the situation. . 

Faye-Anne was mousey but big eyed and petite, smaller and younger than he initially suspected. Her breasts on the other hand were much bigger than he’d assumed they would be and definitely real. That must have been what initially attracted her husband (and presumable her boss) to her. Her eyes were bright with tears and he could see the thin lines of black mascara that had run over her face. Too much make up was an epidemic at this fair and Faye-Anne was no exception – she clearly spent time attempting to make herself look like an overdressed teenager at prom and Hannibal suspected that she wasn’t much older than that. Fiddling with her wedding ring she darted her eyes about the crowd hoping that people had moved on and forgotten about her and husband’s embarrassing fight.

Kevin’s initial bulk from behind had hidden the fact that he was far more muscled and less fatty than Hannibal anticipated him being. The man was built almost like a bulldog, with a square face and squinting tiny eyes that looked as mean as he was on the inside. Large and barrel chested, he was clearly older than his wife but not old enough to make their relationship completely unseemly. Kevin was a man who clearly preferred to bully his way around than try diplomacy. He also was twice the size of his wife and Hannibal could only imagine what sex between the two of them looked like. If Kevin looked like a bulldog, Hannibal wondered if Krystle was a similar size. If so, he couldn’t blame Faye-Anne for wanting to avoid being stuffed between the two.

“Excuse me! Sir! Are you ready to order?” The blandest teenager called to Hannibal, who’d been lost in thought as he stared at the couple and hadn’t noticed that it was his turn to order. As he walked up to the counter, he could feel Kevin’s eyes boring into him and it made him a little giddy. Sure Kevin was fattier than his preferred targets but Hannibal had plans for his arms, which were clearly the only part of his body he bothered to work out. It helped that it was rather apparent that Kevin most likely wouldn’t be missed. 

Moving over to the side after he placed his order, Hannibal focused straight ahead in an attempt to blend back into the crowd. He didn’t want his prey to catch on to him, even though Hannibal hadn’t really been sure that Kevin was going to be his prey until Kevin decided to push it. Strolling casually to Hannibal, he sided up to him and Hannibal could feel Kevin looking him over. 

“What the fuck were you staring at, fag?” 

“You seem to be having some trouble over there with your wife.”

“It’s none of your fucking business.”

“No but you’re being loud enough to make it every one’s business at this point.”

Kevin laughed at Hannibal. Clearly no one had ever confronted him about his public fights with his wife. Faye-Anne was mortified on the other hand, rushing up to her husband and trying to lead him away from getting into a further confrontation about what now seemed to be a manufactured drama. 

“Come on baby let’s just get our food and go to the haunted house! You know how much fun it is!” she said, sounding like someone trying to soothe a startled horse. She gave Hannibal an apologetic look, mouthing an “I’m so sorry” to him when her husband turned his back. He let her lead her husband away as he got his elephant ear and the first truly morbidly obese person he’d seen all night stepped in front of him. 

“Can you pass me some napkins” the woman wheezed, the fat around her wrists blending into her monstrous upper arms. She had a thin face for someone whose body was three times the size of even the fattest person he’d seen all night and she very unused to being on her feet. Passing her a napkin and quickly moving aside, he watched her slowly walk to the counter and he secretly hoped that she wouldn’t fall over. He doubted anyone nearby would be able to or wanted to help raise her up if she did.

Nibbling on the end of his elephant ear, which was greasy but surprisingly good, he threaded his way through the crowds. A group of teenage girls ogled him and whispered to each other about how weirdly attractive they found him. A small child cried while his father argued with a dead eyed teenager about being refused entry on to ride. 

“WE PAID $15 TO GET INTO THIS FAIR AND RIDE, LET US ON!” The father bellowed, slightly unsteady on his feet and as Hannibal got closer he could smell the faint whiff of alcohol clinging to the man’s body. The teenager on the other hand gave no indication that he noticed or cared – most likely he’d dealt with enough drunk individuals that day to reliably conclude the drunken father wasn’t going to be much of a risk to anyone other than his son and frankly the teenager didn’t care about that. 

“Sir, I’ll get security if you keep holding up the line,” the bored boy intoned in a nasally voice that had pretty recently broken. The drunk man raised his arms like he was going to hit him but instead fell forward into a heap. The little boy, forgotten about by both parties until that moment, cried harder. The collapse woke up the teenager and Hannibal who debated about rushing over to help until he saw a very large, very angry come running. 

“JESUS CHRIST, MICHAEL, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?” She yelled and the man rolled over on his back, gurgling and laughing to himself. The boy cried harder, the woman screamed at her husband, and the ride worker got on his walkie-talkie to summon the only people Hannibal had seen who seemed to take any of this seriously. Pulling the man up to his feet, the security team started to half drag, half pull him out and away from the crowds. The wife followed behind, having picked the little boy up, and she quickly got out her phone to call what Hannibal presumed to be her mother.

This slight delay had given Hannibal’s prey time to get lost in crowds. With at least four different haunted houses, Hannibal had his work cut out for him trying to locate them. Wandering about the fairground he navigated his way past puddles of waste and piles of garbage to head to the north end of the fair where funhouses and the gaming arcades were, passing by the barn area that held various pigs and chickens for the upcoming best in show. Deciding to cut through the barn, he ducked in and watched the animals. The plumes on the fanciest chickens reminded him of the feather dusters that were part of the stereotypical French maid costumes he saw girls and women dress in every Halloween. The clucking and squawking and grunting of the animals was almost overwhelmed by the shrieking of small children delighted at being close to animals that most only saw in books or on t.v. If Hannibal could be touched it would have touched him but he was mostly disinterested in them. Children were never on his menu so he never really paid attention to them unless it was necessary. 

A small grubby hand reached out for his sleeve. Hannibal looked down and stared directly into the face of a little girl. 

“Can you help me find my momma?” She asked, her voice verging on the high pitched wail that Hannibal hated to hear regardless of the age of cryer. Scanning the room he looked for a distressed woman in the sea of people crowding in to admire the handmade quilts and homemade jams. No one catching his eye he started to panic just a little. Knowing how people generally reacted when grown men were seen with small crying children Hannibal knelt down to get eye level with frightened girl.

“Where was the last place you saw her?”

“I dunno, by the bunnies?”

The rabbits were housed on the other end of the building, just past the chickens but closer to the north end exit that Hannibal had been working his way towards. It was the silver lining in this ever darkening cloud that had started to make its way over the horizon. Making sure it was okay with her, he took the child’s hand and lead her carefully through the crowds towards the rabbits. 

“What’s your name, mister?” 

“It is Hannibal. What is yours?”

“Eliana.”

“Nice to meet you Eliana. Do you know your mama's name?”

“No. She’s just momma.”

Hannibal sighed. Without this child’s mother’s name he was stuck. Eliana also liked to stop and stare at all the animals, pulling Hannibal over to the cages with the fancy chickens and excitedly talking about how much she wished her apartment let her have a kitten or chicken. It was almost charming in a way and as annoying as he found it, Hannibal had started considering how easy it would be to walk off with the girl. It would be easy to train her up, he thought, but Will most likely wouldn’t appreciate Hannibal suddenly showing up with a child. He let the thought go. Keeping Eliana close to him, Hannibal tracked down an attendant in the barn area. 

“Excuse me. This little girl lost her mother in here and we need someone to find her.” Hannibal explained using as many tricks as he could to ensure that the attendant wouldn’t mistake him for child molester. The attendant, a college age woman, got down on the same level as Eliana, who’d moved behind Hannibal’s legs and refused to make eye contact. 

“Hi there! Can you tell me your name please?” The woman had a soft voice and her long hair was pulled back. Eliana however refused to speak, preferring to hide behind Hannibal and keeping her head down. Child development was never Hannibal’s strong suit and he was growing tired with this game. He had other, more important, things to do and monitoring a child was not one of them. As charming as he was finding her, Eliana needed to go home.

“It’s Eliana”. 

“Did she tell you her mom’s name?”

“No, she’s not sure what it is”.

The attendant got on her walkie-talkie, relaying the information to what Hannibal assumed was security, when a frantic woman approached. She had two older boys with her, neither one of them particularly interested in what was going on around them. The little girl quickly moved out from behind Hannibal’s legs and ran towards her, crying out “Momma!” happily. 

“Momma! This is Hannibal and he helped me find the nice lady!”

The woman eyed him cautiously but the relief in her eyes was palpable. A warmth spread through Hannibal’s chest that Will would have called “tenderness” but Hannibal always thought Will was a little weak in that regard. He was, however, happy that his tag-a-long had located her mother.

“Thank you so much. I don’t know how she got away but thank you. I hope she didn’t bother you.”

“No, she was a pleasure.” Hannibal answered back, smiling at Eliana’s mother. Eliana looked up at him and gave him a big grin and for a moment he almost wished he had taken her with him. She might have turned out to be a good apprentice. Thanking Hannibal, the family moved out of the barn with Eliana’s mother grabbing on to her daughter’s hand as though she was going to jump in to traffic. Hannibal waited a few moments to make sure that they’d lost him in the mass of other people before exiting the barn and heading in the direction of the fun houses.

Studying the outside of an adults only marked haunted house called “The Ghastly Pleasure Palace” he spotted Kevin and Faye-Anne standing in line, waiting to get inside to see what exactly made this haunted house so different from any of the others. The adults only houses were usually mix of vulgar sexual imagery and the occasionally shocking but primarily boring violent pictures and props. Hannibal assumed that this particular haunted house mixed sex, zombies, and the dead in ways that were less than tasteful. 

It was, in other words, the best hunting ground.

Scouting around for a way to discreetly enter the building, Hannibal spotting a darkened area where the fun house met some shrubbery. Carefully he made his way through the bushes he looked for a backdoor or a hidden entrance that employees use to switch out props and pop out in costume to shock and scare the patrons on the inside. 10 feet to the left of where he entered the bushes he spotted a small square door 4 feet off the ground. Coming up to the window he peered inside and found himself staring into a room. 

The walls were covered in fake gore and the only real lighting inside a fake, flickering light hanging from the ceiling. A dismembered corpse made of plastic and wax was reclining in a chair in the corner, it’s head tilted back so it’s slit throat throat was exposed and oozing fake blood. Hannibal though he could make out a pair of legs on the bed but the angle of the window and the lighting in the room made it difficult for him to precisely tell what, if anything ,was there. There was a door that opened into the main corridor of the fun house and the theme music and prop sounds were loud, expanding outwards like a cloud of noise and terrible 90s nu-metal.

It was the perfect place to sit and wait for Kevin and Faye-Anne to pass. 

Hannibal was starting to grow bored when he heard the distinctive, tremulous, pitch of Faye-Anne’s voice echo across the corridor. 

“Oh I want to see what’s in this room!” 

The sound of heels and a heavy pair of boots filled the room as the couple came in. He could hear her shuffling around and the thudding of Kevin’s boots as they wandered around the room. Pressing himself against the wall, Hannibal could hear them clearly searching around the room for something. There was a soft thump as the door was closed and then the sound of someone sitting on the bed filled his ears.

“I want to fuck you here.”

“I’m not sure about that, someone will walk in won’t they?

“This is at the back, no one comes here. They want the room with big titted hooker getting gored. Or that vampire chick getting a stake in the pussy.”

Edging closer to the window to get a better view, Hannibal angled himself to get a fuller view into the room. The bed was the far left corner, close to the window, and he could see the right side of Kevin. His pants were down and Hannibal could clearly see Faye-Anne on her knees, kneeling between Kevin’s legs and bobbing her head up down sucking his cock. Kevin’s groans and moans filled the room but Faye-Anne remained silent, her focus entirely on getting Kevin off so they could leave and go somewhere else. 

With both of them distracted, it was easy for Hannibal to prop the window open and sneak in the room. He had taken his shoes off outside to avoid making too much noise when he landed, waiting for a moment where the background music was loud enough to cover up the thud of his landing. Creeping up behind Kevin, he swiftly took a knife out of the holster he kept attached to his ankle and yanked the larger man’s head back until his throat was as exposed as the one on fake body on the chair 10 feet away.. 

“What the fuck?” Kevin gargled out and Faye-Anne paused her blowjob, giving Hannibal doe eyes as looked up to see what her husband was reacting to. Staring down at Faye-Anne, he put a finger up to his lips to signal to her to be silent. There was fear in her eyes but she said nothing as she stopped having oral sex and sat back onto her heels. Kevin’s eyes darted from side to side until they could finally focus on Hannibal’s face looming above him like the moon.

“Why the fuck are you here you fag? Are you trying to get on my jock?” 

“No”.

“Let me go then, you sick fuck!” 

“No.”

Kevin tried to jerk his upright, causing Hannibal to lose his balance momentarily before he braced himself against the bedframe and used his body weight to yank Kevin’s head back yet again. A smile spread on Hannibal’s lips as he saw the fear begin to creep into the human bulldog’s beady eyes. This was going to be fun, Hannibal decided. He liked it when his prey felt fear and he wanted both Kevin and Faye-Anne to be as afraid as possible. 

With a quick flip of the wrist Hannibal stabbed Kevin in the shoulder. Faye-Anne, who’d been silent up to that point, let out a stifled scream while a guttural animal moan rose out of Kevin’s constricted airway. Hannibal liked that noise and decided to stab the other shoulder. He would refer to them later when butchered off the best part of Kevin to take back to his house. Kevin put his feet flat on the ground and shoved his body up and forward, attempting to shake Hannibal’s grip and throw him off his body. Letting go, Hannibal let Kevin get to his feet. 

Blood ran down Kevin’s arms and in the flickering light of the room it alternated in color, from a bright red to black. It dropped down over his fingers and on to the floors, matching the decorative gore and staining the floor. Faye-Anne scrambled to her feet and rushed to open the door to escape but tripped over heels. She’d dropped her purse by the bed and Hannibal moved quickly to block the door with his body.

It was a shame she had decided to struggle, Hannibal thought, since had planned on letting her go unharmed. 

“Please let me go, I don’t know why you’re doing this but please don’t hurt me.”

“YOU CUNT, GET TO THE DOOR AND GET FUCKING COPS!” Kevin screeched while he lurched towards Faye-Anne and Hannibal. Hannibal could feel Faye-Anne’s demeanor change as she whirled on her husband. Hannibal saw that her hands were clenched tightly into fists and her back straightened out as she squared up against her injured, angry spouse.

“No. Fuck you, you asshole! I hope you rot in hell!”

Well, thought Hannibal, this is new. 

“BUT BABY I LOVE YOU!” 

“IF YOU LOVED ME YOU WOULDN’T HIT ME OR WANT ME TO FUCK YOU AND KRYSTLE! WHO’S YOUR ACTUAL COUSIN AND BLOOD RELATED TO YOU YOU DUMB SHIT!”

“MY MOM ALWAYS CALLED YOU A WHORE AND SAID I SHOULDN’T HAVE MARRIED YOU!” Kevin screamed back, rising up and getting into his wife’s face. Their impending death was leading to a cathartic release of emotions that would have touching if Hannibal had the time to think about it. In a way, murdering Kevin was doing Faye-Anne a favor.

Probably Krystle too.

With the couple’s argument getting louder, Hannibal decided he needed to move quickly in order to finish his work and avoid getting caught. While he didn’t expect to be able to continue his hunting forever, getting caught in a adult themed horror house would just be mark of shame. After all, Hannibal had always intended for Will to be the one to finish the job not a downtrodden wife with a husband who never should have passed out of middle school.

Absorbed as they were in their fight, neither Kevin nor Faye-Anne noticed that their unnamed attacker had moved away from the door and behind Kevin until he stabbed his knife right through Kevin’s throat. Blood gurgled out of the wound and air escaped through the hole in Kevin’s throat as he slowly crumpled down to the ground. His body spasmed as Hannibal began to get to work, cutting off Kevin’s left arm since it was the best toned part of Kevin’s body. The sound of the knife cutting through the flesh in the left arm was squishy yet solid as he cut a circle around the upper arm. Once he hit the bone, Hannibal put his leg on Kevin’s shoulder and neck to stabilize the body part. Putting all his weight into it, a sickening crunching noise filled the room along with Faye-Anne’s horrified moans as Hannibal broke off Kevin’s arm to take with him. 

Looking her in the eye, Hannibal dropped Kevin’s arm on the ground as he approached Faye-Anne like a cat stalking a mouse. And like a mouse Faye-Anne had frozen where she’d collapsed on the ground, unable to take her eyes off the murder and butchery of her husband. Yes she’d prayed for him to die since he’d started hitting her but she hadn’t realized that it would actually come true and now she was filled with a remorse she hadn’t expected to feel.

“Now, Faye-Anne, will you tell anyone what you saw?”

“N-n-no.”

“Do you want to live?”

“YES! Please, yes.”

Hannibal smiled at her and Faye-Anne was not reassured. It was the kind of smile, she thought, that people see before they devoured by a wolf. Then the world went black as Hannibal bashed her head against the wall.

Staring down at Faye-Anne’s prone body, Hannibal decided that the arm would not be enough. She wasn’t quite what he was looking for for his roast but he figured he could make use of her tongue. Rolling her on to her side, so she wouldn’t choke on her own blood, he pried open her mouth and pulled out as much of her tongue as he could. He didn’t necessarily want to kill her but he did want her to appreciate life. With a quick slice, he cut off most of her tongue and positioned her so that the blood would be less likely to run into her lungs.

Turning back to his main prize, he picked Kevin’s left arm and tossed it out the window. It had taken 10 minutes in all to complete the kill and he could hear the footsteps of the funhouse staff coming down the hallway. Still, he had enough to time to pose Kevin in the chair in place of the mannequin. Taking one of the fake dismembered arms, he placed it across Kevin’s lap and put Faye-Anne’s tongue in its palm. Hannibal thought it was fitting.

Jumping up and sliding out the window, he picked up the arm and hid it in the bush. He’d taken the backpack that Kevin had brought with him and stuffed the arm, wrapped in Kevin’s jacket, into it. Nonchalantly he strolled away as a group of teenager’s entered the room and began to scream. 

As he popped back out into the general fair crowds, he started thinking about what he’d make with the arm as he bought deep fried butter on a stick.

It was delicious.


End file.
